Northeast community of Martindale moving wards

Many residents in the northeast neighbourhood of Martindale won't be voting for Ward 3 candidates this election.

City council decided that this community would be moved to Ward 5.

The move was made because of significant population growth in Ward 3 in the last two years.

Currently, the populations of these wards are:

• Ward 3: 87,914• Ward 5: 94,430

"The population of the wards must be relatively equal," says Barbara Clifford, the City of Calgary's returning officer. "We don't like to move part of a community so the one that caused the fewest changes was moving Martindale from Ward 3 to Ward 5."Clifford says that the ward boundaries will once again change in four years time for the next election.

Pros and cons

Alderman Ray Jones, who is running for re-election in Ward 5, says he feels that the inclusion of Martindale is a good thing.

"Alderman Stevenson had to lose something in Ward 3 because Ward 3 was getting fairly huge," says Jones. "It made sense to add a community to mine even though that brings me up to about 95,000 people, which is a lot of people to represent."Martindale was originally in Ward 3 but due to ward boundary changes for the election, the community was placed in Ward 5.

"That will make three regional rec centres. I'll have the Village Square Leisure Centre, the Don Hartman North East Sportsplex and the Genesis Centre," says Jones.

Not all residents of Martindale feel the same way about the inclusion.

Puma Banwait, a resident of Martindale for the past 12 years, he says he feels the community should remain in Ward 3 where it belongs.

"We are still south of 80th Avenue, I believe we should stay over here," Banwait says. "As a whole, I think we'll be counted as the in-betweens and not given much preference."

Voter impact

Alderman Ray Jones says he thinks it is too early to tell whether this ward boundary change will indeed impact the vote.

"We've been doing our bit to door knock the area, dropping flyers and talking to as many people as we can in Martindale," Jones says. "We've had a good response from them."

Jones says that quite a few of the residents know him and that he has dealt with them in the past.

On the other hand, Banwait says he thinks that there will be a significant impact on how people will vote in the ward. He says he is unsure of how he himself will go about the voting process on Oct. 21.

"It's up in the air," he says.

"I don't know what people are coming out with and I don't know who the people are who are running."

Kelly Jones (no relation to Ald. Jones), vice president of the Martindale Community Association says he feels that the vote will be impacted by the fact that residents will not know who to vote for.